Plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace, foreign minister said.

Bolivia's Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca denied the rumour that Edward Snowden, a former contractor for the U.S. National Security Agency, was travelling from Russia to Bolivia in Bolivia's presidential plane.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden's chances for finding refuge outside the US are dwindling. His best bet may hinge on the President of Venezuela, who was in Moscow on Tuesday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

LA PAZ, BOLIVIA—The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales home from Russia was rerouted to Austria on Tuesday after France and Portugal refused to let it cross their airspace because of suspicions that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was on board, the country’s foreign minister said.

Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca denied that Snowden was on the plane, which landed in Vienna, and said France and Portugal would have to explain why they cancelled authorization for the plane.

“We don’t know who invented this lie. We want to denounce to the international community this injustice with the plane of President Evo Morales,” Choquehuanca said.

Morales had earlier met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit of major gas exporters in the Kremlin.

In an interview with Russia Today television, Morales said that his South American country would be willing to consider granting asylum to Snowden.

Leaks by Snowden, a former National Security Agency systems analyst, have revealed the NSA’s sweeping data collection of U.S. phone records and some Internet traffic. Snowden was believed to be in a Moscow airport transit area, seeking asylum from one of more than a dozen countries.

Choquehuanca said in a statement that after France and Portugal cancelled authorization for the flight, Spain’s government allowed the plane to be refuelled in its territory. From there the Falcon plane flew on to Vienna.

He said the decision by France and Portugal “put at risk the life of the president.”

Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg said that Snowden is not with Morales and that the Bolivian president is spending the night at a Vienna hotel.

Officials at Portugal’s Foreign Ministry and National Civil Aviation Authority could not be reached to comment.

French government officials reached overnight said they could not confirm whether Morales’ plane was denied permission to fly over France.

Snowden has applied for asylum in Venezuela, Bolivia and 18 other countries, according to WikiLeaks, a secret spilling website that has been advising him. Many European countries on the list said he would have to make his request on their soil.

Snowden withdrew a bid for asylum in Russia after Putin the country would only shelter him if he stopped leaking U.S. secrets, a Putin spokesman said.